Shahed Hussain the owner of the limo company involved in the crash that killed 20 people had served as an FBI informant in two terror stings Fox News has learned

Hussain, a former gas station owner who worked as a translator for the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles, began working for the FBI in the wake of the 9/11 attacks after he was caught in a federal investigation into fraud and bribery, according to "Crimes of Terror", a legal studies text written by Wadie E. Said, a law professor at the University of SC.

Moreover, the driver, Scott Lisinicchia, 53, "did not have the appropriate driver's license to be operating that vehicle", Cuomo said on Monday as authorities stepped up the probe to find out what caused the tragedy.

He said Prestige Limousine, which Hussain owns, "has a lot of questions to answer" after the deadly crash.

At the time, Hussain owned and operated a Getty gas station on South Pearl Street in Albany. State police are also looking into that.

Hossain would later be convicted of conspiring to aid a terrorist group and provide support for a weapon of mass destruction and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Aref was recently released, but remains in immigration detention pending his deportation to Iraq, according to the Times Union. As in the Albany case, Shahed Hussain posed as a wealthy businessman and befriended the men before implicating them in a terror plot.

But the conviction against the four men - Onta Williams, Laguerre Payen, James Cromitie and David Williams IV - has been criticized as an example of the Federal Bureau of Investigation using entrapment techniques to goad suspects into terrorist acts in order to get convictions.

In 2009, U.S. authorities credited him with rooting out radical Muslims in an elaborate sting at a mosque in Newburgh, a city north of NY.

Despite being exposed, Hussain never left the area, according to the Times Union.

Al-Akili, who was later convicted of a firearms charge, said he was approached by Hussain, who went by the name "Mohammed", and another man, who used the name "Shareef", when they turned up in his neighborhood and repeatedly made attempts to get close to Al-Akili. He said the men were "too obvious" and requested receipts even for small items they purchased like coffee and doughnuts. The limo company was registered at that address. Instead, he hunkered down, running a motel in the town of Wilton, and eventually opening up his limo business, which he ran for a time out of the back of the motel, before regulators forced the business to relocate, the Times Union reports.

Official records cited by news reports also show Prestige Limousines, the company that owns the limo, has been cited for 22 violations in the last 24 months, CBS News reported.

In brief remarks Monday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the vehicle that crashed failed a NY state inspection last month.